Recently, 3C products (communication, computer and consumer electronics) have already played important roles in daily life. In particular, the new emerging flat panel display that features less space occupation has quickly grasped people's attention and interests and is extending its market share over the traditional cathode ray tube displays.
In the flat panel display industry, the liquid crystal display (LCD) is one of the well-developed products. The LCD has merits of lightweight, convenient moving and less space occupation and is widely applied to cell phones, language translators, digital cameras, PDAs and notebook computers.
Referring to FIGS. 1a˜1c, a perspective back view of a conventional LCD, an exploded view of a conventional socket structure of the LCD, and an exploded view of another socket structure for the LCD of FIG. 1a are shown, respectively. The flat panel display generally includes a panel display 101, a PCB 110 and other related elements. The PCB 110 is connected to the panel display 101 for driving the panel display 101 to show the image. In general, to protect the PCB 110, a housing (not shown in the figure) of the PCB 110 can be introduced to contain the PCB 110.
A side plate lateral to the PCB 110 (may be a part of the housing of the PCB) can provide a plurality of holes to mount relevant sockets for the LCD. In FIG. 1a, three holes are respectively shown to mount a power socket 11, and two digital sockets 12 and 13. In particular, the hole at the right hand side of the plate in FIG. 1a is a power socket 11 to receiving a power plug 14.
Referring to FIG. 1b, an exploded view of the power socket 11 of FIG. 1a is shown. One end of the power socket 11 has pins for connecting to the PCB 110, while the opposing end thereof has a socket hole 111 for receiving the plug 14. Another side of the socket 11 has a plurality of welds 1102 to pair respectively a plurality of pads 1103 on the PCB 110. By wielding each weld 1102 and the corresponding pad 1103, the socket 11 can be fixed and electricity connected to the PCB 110.
To further fix the power socket 11 on the PCB 110, a fixed iron piece 112 is used to restrain the socket 11 by screwing to the PCB 110 through the combining holes 1130 at the opposing extending portions 113 of the fixed iron piece 112.
As shown in FIG. 1b, a side plate 15 of the PCB 110 has a hole 150 to expose the socket 11 of the PCB 110. When the PCB 110 is mounted in the housing, the socket 11 can just be accessible through the hole 150.
Therefore, when the plug 14 engages with the socket 11, the welding between the socket 11 and the PCB 110 needs to sustain a substantial pulling force from the plug's action. In some accidental situations, the pulling force may be large enough to crack the welding between the socket 11 and the PCB 110 that may finally lead to fail the connection to the power source and the imaging of the flat panel display. Further, for the extend portion 113 of the fixed iron piece 112 is fixed firmly on the PCB 110, a room on the PCB 110 must be empty, and thus wasted, to dodge the fixed iron piece 112.
Referring to FIG. 1c, an exploded view of another conventional socket 21 is shown. An end of the socket 21 has pins connected to the PCB 210. One side of the socket 21 has a socket hole 211 for receiving the plug (not shown in the figure). A bottom face of the socket 21 has a plurality of welds 2102 to pair a plurality of corresponding pads 2103 of the PCB 210. Through the welding, the socket 21 can then be fixed and electrically connected to the PCB 210.
For ensuring the socket 21 on the PCB 210, a conventional back-housing 26 of the panel display is used to press on top of the socket 21. As shown in FIG. 1c, a plurality of ribs 260 (two shown in the figure) are extended downward to clamp firmly the socket 21.
The side plate 25 of the housing of the PCB can provide a plurality of combining holes to expose the socket 21 of the PCB 210. As shown in FIG. 1c, the upper portion of the side plate 25 has combining holes 250. When the PCB 210 is mounted inside the housing 10, the socket 11 can receive a plug through the combining holes 150. In a typical pulling out process of an engaging plug, the retrieval force for pulling out the plug is regarded as a harmful shearing force against the welds between the socket 21 and the PCB 210.
In addition, with respect to the retrieval force through the plug, the direction arrangement of the ribs is not good for structural stability. In particular, the socket may fall off from the housing after frequently usage. Besides, when the plug is anchored inside the socket, the welding between the socket and the PCB needs to sustain the disturbance force from the plug. So, any accidental force upon the socket or the plug may be easily to crack the welding between the socket and the PCB. Definitely, any crack to the welding may interrupt the power source to the flat panel display.